A Dramatisation of the Prophet Muhammad's Life: Henri de Bornier's "Mahomet"

Author(s): C. E. Bosworth
Source: Numen, Vol. 17, Fasc. 2 (Aug., 1970), pp. 105-117
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3269689
Accessed: 10-11-2019 12:26 UTC

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 A DRAMATISATION OF THE PROPHET
MUHAMMAD'S LIFE:
HENRI DE BORNIER'S MAHOMET
BY

C. E. BOSWORTH

University of Manchester

Henri, Vicomte de Bornier (1825-1901), is a dramatist held in no

great esteem by modern critics of French literature, but one who
achieved a considerable reputation in his own time. Of a family
whose roots were in the Huguenot nobility of Languedoc but which
had made a timely conversion to Catholicism when the Edict of
Nantes was revoked, his life was an even progress in official library
positions (punctuated by a spell of excitement when he defended the
Bibliothique de l'Arsenal, where he eventually became Chief Librarian,
against Communard incendiarists), and latterly, a string of successes
in the literary and theatrical world. His romantic, heroic dramas, such
as La fille de Roland (in which Sarah Bernhardt created the title
r6le in 1874), Dmitri (on the theme, familiar from Mussorgsky's
opera Boris Gudunov, of the pretended heir to Tsar Ivan IV and his
brief elevation to power on the death of Boris), Les noces d'Attila
(concerned with the Hunnish leader's marriage to Hildiga, daughter
of the king of the Burgundians) and France ... d'abord (set in the
13th century and dealing with the regency in France of Louis VIII's
widow Blanche of Castile for her son Louis XI), were especially
attuned to the mood of patriotism and national fervour engendered
under the Second Empire and by the traumatic experiences of 1870-1.
In 1883 Bornier's career was crowned by the ultimate honour of elec-
tion to the Acad~mie Frangaise. 1)

I) For general biographical information, see the relevant article in Diction-

naire de biographie franCaise (M. Prevost), and for a detailed account of Bor-
nier's literary production, Nancy Stewart, La vie et l'oeuvre d'Henri de Bornier
(Paris 1935).

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 o106 C. E. Bosworth

Bornier was also affected by the atmospher

tion on the origins of monotheistic religion,
of religions, and on the nature of the inspirat
impelling the great men of religion in their m
whch was being invoked by Renan, Strauss
higher critics. In 1881 Bornier produced a po
which combined his favourite heroic motif w
the journeys of St. Paul and his Apostleship t
is built firstly around the dynamic characte
change from zealous persecutor to enthus
secondly round the clash of three faiths: the
of Christ; the sectarian particularism of Jud
hedonistic polytheism of traditional Roman r
A few years later, in 1889, he completed an
the same theme of the religiously-inspired fi
of the higher religions, his subjects this time
hammad and the relationship of the nasce
Christianity. In his Mahomet he adopted a bas
tude, but he depicted Christianity as superio
trayed Muhammad as consciously aware of thi

J'ai rdpresent6 Mahomet comme un illumin6 de

formidable et doux, un dompteur des peuples, mai
des premiers gentilhommes du monde, comme l'a
I1 est vrai que j'ai donni a Mahomet la conscienc
Dieu des Chritiens; il est vrai qu'avant de mourir
cri d'inquidtude, de respect et d'admiration jalous

II

The first act of the play is set in Mecca, at the time when Muham
mad first began his preaching to the pagan Meccans. 3) The gross-
ness and barbarism of the pre-Islamic Arabs are displayed by th
passing of a procession which is about to bury alive a female child,
a practice denounced by the onlooking Christian monk Georgios an
the Jewish merchant Jonas. Also expressed at the outset is the Arab

2) "L'hiroisme au theitre", in Le Correspondant of Ioth February 1890, cite

in Stewart, op. cit., 159.
3) This first act, which forms something of a prologue to the main action of
the play and which sets forth the basic themes of potential conflict within
Muhammad, is absent from the first draft and first manuscript of the play

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 Henri de Bornier's Mahomet Io7

desire for a strong man who will bring a firm and just hand to th
anarchy and spoliation prevalent in the Arabian peninsula:

... Parmi nous, il peut surgir un homme,

Quelque rude guerrier qui nous mette d'accord,
Et nous fasse, au besoin, trembler tous, moi d'abord!
Nous en avons besoin tous, Chritiens, Juifs, Arabes...
Cependant, le disordre est dans chaque tribu,
Lepillage, le vol, le meurtre, I'incendie,
La bassesse, la haine avec la perfidie,
Les immondes plaisirs, le mal fait ou riv4,
Les crimes dont le nom n'est pas encor trouv6!
Notre courage meurt en c.es honteuses tiches,
Les aigles du d6sert disent: ou vont ces lIches?
Nos fils vaudront encor moins que nous ne valions,
Et le mipris de l'homme est dans l'oeil des lions! 4)

When Muhammad appears, he describes the revelations he has receiv

from God on Mount HiriP and his prophetic charge to abolish a
false idols and unite all the tribes of Arabia under one God. But
Muhammad is also confronted by the monk Georgios, who has in
earlier days brought up Muhammad and taught him the Torah and
Gospels; the character of Georgios is clearly modelled on that of
Bahir5, the legendary hermit of Bosra, whom Muhammad is said to
have encountered during a youthful trading expedition to Syria and
who is said to have discerned between Muhammad's shoulder blades
the mark of divine favour, the seal of the prophets. Georgios ask
Muhammad outright, will he now establish Christianity in Arabia, as
he had previously promised? However, Muhammad asserts that he
has now had a superior revelation, and that whilst continuing to
recognise the greatness of Christ, the people of Arabia need a differ-
ent law from that of Christianity. In terms reminiscent of Faust's
declaration,
Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust...

Georgios analyses the conflict within Muhammad's soul, discerning as

uppermost in it an overweening pride and a desire to surpass Christ.

4) Act I, Scene I, p. 260 of the text of Mahomet in Oeuvres choisies de Henri

de Bornier de l'Acadimie Francaise (Paris 1913). The play was actually first
printed in 18890, but this edition has not been available to me. A copy of the
appropriate section of the Oeuvres choisies was procured for me through the
kindness of Mr R. W. Ferrier.

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Io8 C. E. Bosworth

Deux hommes sont en toi: l'un bon, fidd

L'autre, giant d'orgueil qui cherchait le m
De bondir sur la proie et de toucher son r
C'est ce dernier, mon fils, qui maintena
- Tu ne veux pas du Christ ? C'est que ta
T'inspire je ne sais quelle rivalitd.
Tu l'admires, dis-tu; mais par un stratag
De ton orgueil, en lui tu admires toi-mim
Car tu crois 6galer quelque jour sa vertu
Sa gloire, son triomphe; eh bien - I'osera

He also repeats the warning of Muham

that Muhammad should beware of the
becoming enthralled by a woman; and fin
to remember in his heart, when he bec
apostle of the Arabs, the name of Christ. 5
The remaining four acts of the play are
later, when the Prophet is at the peak of
being expelled from their last fortresses
tines and Persians have been defeated, and
new religion of Islam; Muhammad has ma
of Abfi Bakr, chief of Mecca; only the J
sessors of a superior revelation and faith,
But he has not resolved the conflicts within his own soul. The new
religion of Islam has decisively propounded the inferiority of women,
and has made them mere slaves and chattels of man. Muhammad
denies that women have any attraction for him:

Le Prophite, cr46 pour les divins combats,

Doit briser sans effort les liens d'ici-bas:
Au palmier du d~sert il doit Stre semblable:
La tate dans le ciel et les pieds dans le sable!
Pour les hommes pareils . moi, sachez-le bien,
Le p&ril c'est d'aimer, le reste ce n'est rien!
Dieu m'a donna le droit, au gr& de mon envie,
De rapprocher ma mort ou d'allonger ma vie;
Je mourais done avant de m'abaisser! L'amour
M'abaisserait. La femme est le plaisir d'un jour;
Mais l'homme qui lui laisse usurper dans son Ame
La place des devoirs aust~res, Dieu le blime! 6)

5) Act I, Scene 4 = Oeuvres choisies, 266-7.

6) Act II, Scene 4 = Oeuvres choisies, 281.

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 Henri de Bornier's Mahomet o109

But to himself, he later admits that Ayesha, alone of all women,

excites his heart.

In this soliloquy, spoken before an icon of Christ, in a Christian

monastery which he has encountered in the desert, Muhammad
expresses his inward feeling of inferiority at the side of Jesus.
Despite the temporal might and dominion which he has attained, there
is one glory to which he can never aspire, sc. that of the Cross:

- O fils de Myriam, martyr mystirieux,

Pourquoi done devant toi baisserais-je les yeux?
Pourquoi? mon 6difice immense touche au faite;
J~sus de Nazareth 6tait aussi prophite;
Mais le ciel me fit naltre apr~s Moise et lui
Pour achever leur oeuvre et pour l'agrandir, oui!
Je suis cela! ce peuple, inclind sous mes r~gles,
A pour seul horizon l'ombre que font mes aigles!
Je marche de splendeur et d'effroi rev~tu;
Je suis done ton ~gal! - Mahomet, qu'en sais-tu?
- Je le sais! Entre tous les &tres, dans les tges,
Qu'ils aient &td cl~ments, forts, terribles ou sages,
Qu'ils se nomment C~sar, Zoroastre, Attila,
Aucun ne fut plus grand que moi! - Mais celui-li?
- Comme lui, cependant, j'ai refait ma patrie,
J'en ai chass6 ce monstre impur, l'idolitrie;
Chamelier, comme lui fils du charpentier,
J'ai suivi le c6leste et lumineux sentier;
Je n'ai jamais &td de clartis &conome;
Mon reflet restera sur la face de l'homme,
Je suis grand, je serai plus grand! Oui, je crois;
Voild mon sceptre t moi, le sabre! - Mais la croix ?

Yet he further observes that, being a man, he is necessarily subject

to the emotions of man:

O pouvoir qui milas au plaisir le remord,

Les sources de la vie aux sources de la mort,
Jamais rien de ta dure et douce tyrannie,
Rien ne nous d~fendra, non, rien, ni le g~nie,
Ni l'orgueil, ni la peur du regard effrayant
De la femme qui, mime t ses pieds nous voyant
Semble cacher, au fond de sa vague prunelle,
Un secret et peut-&tre une plainte eternelle!
- Puisqu'il en est ainsi, moine, la voluptk
Est un loi du monde et de l'humanit6;
Tout homme peut c~der t ce souffle de flamme

Pourvu qu'. mon exemple il en garde son Ame! 7)

7) Act II, Scene 6 = Oeuvres choisies, 287-90.

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 I IO C. E. Bosworth

We now approach the dramatic core of

to secure Muhammad's downfall. Sofia,
etess, deliberately lets herself fall into t
intending to encompass Muhammad's
Holofernes, but in a more subtle way th
Instead, she allies with Hafsa, the repud
poison Muhammad's mind against his
insinuating that Ayesha is still in culpable
Safwin, who had loyally renounced his cl
wanted her for his own wife. Bornier s
for his own dramatic purposes, two episo
In the year 626, four years after the h
Zainab bint Jahsh, wife of Muhammad'
was seen by Muhammad. The latter was
persuaded to divorce her so that she cou
manoeuvrings caused some criticism am
seems, because Muhammad was considere
but because his marrying Zainab was vie
whole affair was retroactively justified
The second episode is the so-called "Af
Ifk). After the expedition of 627 against
1-Mustaliq, Muhammad's wife Ayesha
desert and had eventually returned to
young warrior, Safwin b. al-MuCattal. M
the Medians seized this as a pretext for
implication, the Prophet's whole family;
to be baseless and the calumniators wer
tion eventually laying down what was t
for bringing a charge of adultery and a
punishment for those guilty of uttering a
takes over the name of Safwin for Ayes
him a commander of the expedition sent

8) Adopted and ordinary sons were considere

same position in regard to marriage; hence M
could be interpreted as marriage with one's daughter-in-law. See W. Mont-
gomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford 1956), 329-30.
9) Qur35n, XXXIII, 37-4o.
Io) Qur5in, XXIV, 2 ff., cf. Nabia Abbott, Aishah, the beloved of Mohammed
(Chicago 1942), 29-38.

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 Henri de Bornier's Mahomet I II

an invading Byzantine army (the historical former husband of

Zaid b. Hiritha, commanded the Muslim expedition to Mu'ta, o
Byzantine frontiers, in 629, and there met his death). He also
in the Medinan poet Hassin b. Thibit-who in the historical "A
of the Lie" was one of Ayesha's calumniators-as one of the plo
with Sofia and Hafsa to denounce to the Prophet Ayesha's conti
love for Safw5n.
Muhammad for a time rejects their accusation, and condemn
sin and Hafsa to death as perjurers; 11) but in the end, Safw
confesses that Ayesha has given him her heart, although in a p
and not in an adulterous sense. Ayesha now in turn accuses Muh
of never having lover, of having rejected all human feeling and
tion, and of being deliberately anti-feminine:

Toi, tu ne vois que I'homme ici-bas, le seigneur,

Le maitre, le gardien sombre de notre honneur,
Le pasteur du troupeau! Ta loi dure proclame,

Respire . du
Servante chaque mot
plaisir le l'amour
et de m~pris de la femme;
brutal,
Dans ce monde elle va portant ce joug fatal,
Et, pour en faire encor la victime 6ternelle,
Ton paradis lui-mime est un affront pour elle!

She compares him unfavourably to Christ, whose gospel of love

accords an honourable place to woman:

- Lui, JTsus, il a mis au lieu d'un joug infame,

L'6toile du matin sur le front de la femme!
II a fait d'elle, au lieu de l'esclave dompt6,
L'6ternelle vertu, I'immortelle bont6.
Et, pour forcer partout l'homme injuste ? se taire,
A celui dont l'orgueil la courbait jusqu't terre
II dit: <Au haut du ciel, dans l'ombre du saint lieu,

< Regarde, c'est ta mire . c6te de ton Dieu! >> 12)

This accusation is the last straw for Muhammad's agonised and
tortured mind. For the first time, he is racked by doubts over his mis-
sion and over his own personality. Renouncing his prophethood and
his leadership of the Muslim community in favour of Abfi Bakr, he
confesses that he has in fact loved Ayesha all the time, but as holy

II) The actual punishment prescribed for this in the Qur an and later Islamic
law is only flogging, cf. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Ist edn., s.v. "Kadhf".
12) Act V, Scene 2 = Oeuvres choisies, 337-8.

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 112 C. E. Bosworth

man and war leader, had felt bound to conceal

way out for him, as he sees it, is to drink th
Sofia had prepared for herself. In his dying
dons Ayesha, Safwin and even Sofia, and hi
obsessively to Christ:

Tout a l'heure quelqu'un me reprochait J~s

Ton calme, ta bont6, je ne les ai pas eus,
Et je suis l'envieux de ta vertu severe;
O Christ! Je veux du moins imiter ton calv

and his final words are, like those of Julian the

of the Galilean and his ultimate victory. 13)

III

As remarked above, Bornier's view of Muhammad and his prophe

hood was at bottom a sympathetic one, within the intellectual fram
work of his own personal Catholic faith and seminary upbringing.
It is well-known that the Christians of the Middle Ages regarded M
hammad not merely as a false prophet but as a veritable Anti-Ch
or incarnation in Arab form of the Devil himself. 15) Until the l
years of the I7th century the political and military threat to Christ
dom from the Islamic world appeared menacing. With Muslim pow
holding the whole of North Africa, with the Ottoman empire occupyin
the Balkans and most of Hungary and raiding into Austria, and w
the Tatars still controlling much of southern Russia, Christian Eur
felt hemmed in by the infidels. With the advantage of hindsight,
can see that by the I7th century the Ottoman empire had passed
peak of its power, and that towards the end of that century, the t
of Turkish conquest had definitely turned; but for the Christians
Europe at this time, old fears were still strong.
Only in the I8th century can we discern the beginnings of attem
to view Muhammad and his faith with understanding and dispassio
ateness. In large measure this was a reflection of philosophic
13) Act V, Scene 5 = Oeuvres choisies, 345, 347.
14) He had been educated at the seminaries of Versailles and of St. Pons
Montpellier.
15) The mediaeval Christian image of Muhammad and his faith has been
traced in a masterly fashion by Norman A. Daniel in his Islam and the West,
the making of an image (Edinburgh 1960).

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 Henri de Bornier's Mahomet 113

rationalism in France and Protestant latitudinarianism in Engl

and it contained a good measure of revulsion against Catholicis
feeling that the object of so much mediaeval Catholic execration
not be so bad after all. The attitude of the French philosophes i
in the Comte de Boulainvilliers' Histoire des Arabes and Vie de
Mahomet (1730), in which he depicted Muhammad as a man o
genius, a great legislator and military conqueror, whose mission
to spread justice and civilisation amongst the barbarous Arabs of
7th century .Voltaire's drama Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet le Proph
(1742) seems to mark a reaction in this process of gradual rehab
tation of Muhammad, and a reversion to earlier, crudely anti-Mu
attitudes. The play was dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV and de
Muhammad as a complete impostor and immoral monster, swayed
by ambition, desire for power, lust and sexual jealousy. In fact,
taire probably wrote with his tongue in his cheek, hoping that the pl
treatment of Muhammad's character, and the papal blessing, wo
ensure a favourable reception for the work. But he did have a p
sophical intention, sc. to point out the effects of religious fanati
with its not infrequent consequence of crimes against humanity. W
the play was staged again in 1751, 16) Voltaire confessed in a lette
a friend, "J'ai fait Mahomet un peu plus m&chant qu'il n'6tait". He
at this very time making amends in his Essai sur les moeurs, in w
eastern religions had a large part. Although Voltaire the rationa
could not but regard the founder of a new religion as something
mountebank, Muhammad was at least "un hardi et sublime charlat
a military leader and justiciar comparable to Cromwell, and an ap
of tolerance and brotherhood. 17)
With the I9th century comes the birth in France and German
scientific orientalism. In the second quarter of the century,
scholars as the Frenchman A.-P. Caussin de Perceval and the German
Jewish one Gustav Weil brought to the consideration of Muhammad's
career as a prophet the canons of the newly-developing historical-

16) It had been suspended after only its third performance in Paris in 1742.
17) See Pierre Martino, "Mahomet en France au XVIIJe et au XVIIIe si&cle",
in Actes du XIVe Congrhs International des Orientalistes, Alger 1905, Troisidme
partie, langues musulmanes (Paris I907), 220 ff.; Gustav Pfannmiiller, Hand-
buch der Islam-Literatur (Berlin and Leipzig 1923), 1'16 ff.; N. A. Daniel,
Islam, Europe and empire (Edinburgh I966), ch. I, "The developing image".

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114 C. E. Bosworth

critical method. 18) Whilst the sources a

were inadequate for a clearly-defined
emerge, their books did propound the
completely sincere figure, convinced of
the Arabs out of their abysmal ignoran
During this same period the Scotsman
series of lectures on Heroes, hero-wors
(I840). In the second lecture he dealt wi
Muhammad as his example. He proclai
current hypothesis about Mahomet, tha
a Falsehood incarnate, that his religion
and fatuity, begins really to be now unt
on the particular ground that it was im
lions of people should have been delude
and on the general ground that all Gre
"I should say sincerity, a d(leep, great, g
characteristic of all men in any way he
not help being sincere". Muhammad's m
"The rude message he delivered was a
confused voice from the unknown Deep
fact, his faults were of less importance.
of the alleged sensuality of his religion
lived frugally. Carlyle admired above
mealy-routhedness in Muhammad, and
cern with the crucial questions of Salva
final conclusion was that "On the wh
religion of Mahomet's is a kind of Chris
of what is spiritually highest looking th
all its imperfections". 19)
Bornier was an explicit admirer of Ca
hammad. In contrast to Voltaire's chara
a rogue, Bornier regards him as undoub
that he was God's chosen apostle to a ba

18) In their respective books, Essai sur l'histo

(Paris 1847-8), the third volume of which deal
and Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und
19) See on the general topic of Carlyle's app
gomery Watt, "Carlyle on Muhammad", Th
247-54.

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 Henri de Bornier's Mahomet 115

and he depicts him, when his second act opens, as triumphant over
forces of anarchy and violence-what the Qurjin denounces as
hamiyyat-al-/ahiliyya, the ferocity of the time of barbarism. In t
last two or three years of his life, Muhammad could look back on
mission well-accomplished, the formation of a Muslim community
Medina which was ready to expand into an Islamic state. Whe
Blornier diverges from historical reality is, of course, in his portr
of Muhammad's last days and his manner of death. By involving M
hammad in an emotional entanglement with the womenfolk Ayes
Sofia and Hafsa, and by making Muhammad kill himself after
realisation of his failure to alleviate the lot of the female half of the
race, Bornier was able to shiow the tortured mind of a man attempting,
but ultimately failing, to master his own weaknesses, weaknesses which
in an ordinary man would have been part of the common stock of his
humanity, but which in a prophet were impediments to the full reali-
sation of his mission.

Muhammad's love-hate relationship with Christ and Christianity was

introduced by Bornier to place an element of intellectual and moral
conflict at the side of the emotional one. We know of nothing which
would substantiate Bornier's idea that Muhammad realised all along,
in his heart of hearts, his moral inferiority to Jesus Christ. If we
discount the legendary meeting with the monk Bahiri, we must assume
that Muhammad in his native Hijjiz had little contact with any
Christians and only a confused, third-hand knowledge of Christian
doctrine and practice. In the Qur'an, Christ appears as a miracle-
worker, and in this wise superior to Muhammad, but He is not
acknowledged as the Son of God and the Second Person of the Trinity.
He is merely one person in the line of prophets preceeding Muhammad;
His divine revelation, the Gospel, was adequate for the Christians of
His time, but was speedily corrupted by succeeding generations, and
has now been superseded by the Qur~an revealed by God to Muham-
mad, which is the full and exact version of the eternal scripture laid
up in heaven on the Preserved Tablet. The dominant influences on
the development of the Islamic cult and its law seem to have been
Jewish rather than Christian, although Bornier takes no account of
the Jewish contribution to Islam; only Muhammad's relentless harry-
ing of the Jews of Arabia is made the background to the second act
and the ultimate cause of Muhammad's own ruin.

NUMEN XVII 8

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116 C. E. Bosworth

Yet Bornier's picture of Muhammad is jus

tist's point of view, if not from that of t
knew how to give his scenes an authent
obviously read with care translations of
Prophet's Stra or life-story as composed by
in things like Arab foodstuffs (talbina,
the pagan Arab gods and goddesses (Wad
mad's personal weapons, his sword Dhf
Muwashshi and his lance al-Muntawi, and s
use of local colour much impressed contemp
although they remarked on the play's long
extensive set speeches and soliloquies. On t
was a bold attempt to build a drama round
themes of human history, the rise of Islam
Christian Europe had not previously bee
before his time, because of sectarian prejudi
views on representation of the person of t
virtually a forbidden topic of the drama a
Islamic world. 20)
Bornier himself was the victim of blind
prejudice in regard to his Mahomet. The
in 1889 when a Turkish newspaper reprodu
the news of its forthcoming production. Th
assured the Turkish ambassador in Paris, E
did not constitute an attack on the Prophe
beliefs of the Muslims. Bornier pointed ou
or passion plays regularly depicted the dea
as those of the Shicite martyrs, and he off
of his work's being played in Algeria and T
still failed to satisfy the Turkish authoritie
the government, Freycinet, banned the pr

20) Jacob M. Landau cites recent instances wher

elements in the orthodox religious institution has
or cinematic representation. In 1926-7 the ulema of
outcry against the introduction of the cinema into E
might be irreverently portrayed on the screen; an
to the Egyptian government about a foreign film
Egypt the story of the life of Muhammad and th
in the Arab theater and cinema [Philadelphia I95

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 Henri de Bornier's Mahomet 1 17

France, a prohibition which, it was reported, gave much pleasure to

the Sultan CAbd al-Hamid II. It must be admitted that Muslims would
undeniably find offensive a play in which their Prophet killed him-
self because of a woman and because of inferiority feelings vis-a-vis
Christianity, but there is no evidence that either the Turkish ambassa-
dor or the Sultan had seen the play, much less read it, when they first
objected to it. The French government's surrender to this Turkish
pressure was plausibly attributed by Martino to the contemporary poli-
tical situation, for in 1889 the German Emperor William II was
beginning his journey to Istanbul and the Near East, and France
feared to do anything which might drive Turkey further into Ger-
many's arms; the susceptibilities of France's numerous Muslim sub-
jects in North Africa must also have been a consideration. Not till
1896 were excerpts from Mahomet presented to the public in a
special arrangement for theatrical declamation. 21)
Since Bornier's time, no major European dramatist seems to have
essayed a play on the life of the Prophet. One should, however, note
the Egyptian author Taufiq al-Hakim's historical play Muhammad
(1936), characterised by Landau as the first Arabic play treating
exclusively of the Prophet's life and mission. Its great length makes
it unsuitable for actual production, and probably it was never intended
for such; it is accordingly impossible to gauge what contemporary
Egyptian reaction would have been to a theatrical presentation of
the work.22)

21) Stewart, La vie et l'oeuvre d'Henri de Bornier, 165-9 (citing Martino,

L'Interdiction du Mahomet de M. Henri de Bornier [Algiers 1932], 8), 202-3.
Bornier suffered more than his fair share of trouble over the staging of his
dramas. His early play Le Mariage de Luther (1845) was accepted by the
Comkdie-Frangaise but never staged or published, apparently because it raised
the delicate question of clerical marriage at a time when the revolutionary mur-
murs preceeding 1848 were already discernible. His Dante et Beatrice (1853)
suffered because of its political allusions and the comparison which people made
between Dante's exile and the retreat of Victor Hugo to Guernsey after the advent
of "Napoleon le Petit". Finally, his Le Chemin de Saint-Jacques (1865), set in
the age of Charlemagne, was refused by the Theitre-Frangais because it depicted
a defeated France and a humiliated emperor.
22) Landau, op cit., 143.

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